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Yahoo smites dedicated Mobile group
As mocoNews points out, Google CEO Eric Schmidt made a fascinating (if not obvious) observation at his MWC keynote last month: for his company, mobile's now the primary focus while the desktop plays a secondary role. Yahoo seems to be reaching a similar conclusion on news that it has officially broken up its Mobile unit, instead moving mobile-focused employees into other divisions within the organization -- in other words, mobile will become integral to every group rather than an afterthought pushed to a separate set of bodies. Yahoo's been playing second fiddle to Google and Microsoft in this game -- understandably so, considering both of its biggest competitors have their own mobile operating systems -- but it remains to be seen how big of an impact this'll have. Defaulting an Android-powered phone to Yahoo search is a good start, we suppose.
Yahoo! to distribute, cheer for Opera Mini
Maybe we're just imagining things, but it sure seems like a lot of deals are going down here in Barcelona. The latest partnership to arise from the middle of nowhere is this one, a tie-up between Yahoo! and Opera that will see the search engine company distribute and pimp the Opera Mini web browser to its many Yahoo! Mobile users. Under the deal, Yahoo! is expected to begin distributing Opera Mini via Yahoo! Mobile (gratis, of course) and also as a standalone download from Yahoo!'s mobile Web sites in the near future. A curious matchup, yeah? Should be interesting to see where this leads -- we get the feeling this is just the beginning of something much, much bigger. Or maybe just bigger.[Via phonescoop]
Survey: 74% of US Americans say NO to in-flight calling, YES to data
In a Harris Interactive survey of 2,030 US adults of whom, 1,778 have actually flown in an airplane, a full three quarters say that cellphone usage on airplanes should be restricted to "non-talking features." In other words, email, texting, and surfing the Web. That's a pretty significant majority seeing as how the EC has cleared the way for calls within European airspace. 69% of consumers agreed that if voice calls are permitted, a special "talking zone" should be established so that other passengers are not interrupted. While the survey reflects our own opinions, take note that the results benefit sites like Yahoo! Mobile, the very company which commissioned the survey. It's also worth highlighting a comment made by a certain Miss Teen, South Carolina who said, "That some US Americans should be unable to do so, because, uh, some-a people out there in our nation don't have cellphones, and such as, maps." Good point.
Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 Gamma now available
Yahoo! is carving its own little piece of limelight from this week's 3GSM event in Barcelona, as the web's most highly-visited portal launched a new gamma version of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 as of Monday -- just a short month after the beta rollout. What's new from the beta to the gamma? Outside of Greek designations, customers can now search directly from maps and share Yahoo!'s oneSearch results, news articles and more with friends. Ah, social communities and Yahoo! Mobile -- what a match made in, well, somewhere. But, you'll need to have one of 100 phones that the new Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 works on -- and with Google also stepping it up, this is a mobile battle that's turning the screws every time we see it.
Motorola to bundle Yahoo Go for Mobile
If you're anxiously awaiting Motorola's upcoming lineup, get ready for a little more Yahoo than you may have expected. The two have announced a love-fest that will ultimately result in Yahoo's "Go" bundle of garden-variety tools and apps being "prominently featured" on some of Moto's handsets starting in the first half of '07. You might recall Go making a cameo on Cingular's Nokia 6682; from the press release, we've no reason to expect anything wildly different when it shows up on the Capris of the world. As long as we don't find a dedicated "Y!" button etched into the keypad of our RAZR K1, we dig.[Via Phone Scoop]
